It would be asinine to pretend that the state of things in this country has not deteriorated since I wrote last year’s Thanksgiving column; that, for those of us who believe in a vision of America which is currently being trampled under ICE’s boots, there is not ample reason to experience the opposite of thankfulness. Now is the winter of our discontent, not yet made glorious summer, “my idols are dead and my enemies are in power,” all that jazz.
So when I set out to write this year’s Thanksgiving column, I also set out to avoid being Pollyannaish about it, to avoid glossing over the palpable reality that things are, in many senses, actually pretty bad. I also wanted to avoid copping out, for lack of a better term, by focusing my thanks entirely on the timeless things we should all be thankful for: friends, family, health, life. Instead, I set out to look right at the problem – the ongoing deterioration of our society and body politic, the acceleration of fascism in America – and find reasons for gratitude within that struggle.
It wasn’t easy, but I think it was worth it. This is where I landed.
The Incompetence of Our Opponents
Last week, while in hot pursuit of one of the administration’s many politically motivated prosecutions of rivals, Trump appointee Lindsey Halligan put on a masterclass in the first item on this list: the incompetence of our opponents.
The snafu came as Halligan, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, sought to advance the government’s prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, a man I do not particularly care for, but who clearly has not committed any of the crimes with which he has been charged. In attempting to present the court with the grand-jury-approved indictments against Comey, Halligan instead presented the court with a set of charges the grand jury had not, in fact, approved, before providing a series of explanations which raised even more questions. Now, there are questions about whether the prosecution can proceed, or whether it has been irreparably botched (while I have been writing this column, a federal judge has thrown out the prosecution against Comey, as well as the prosecution of former New York attorney general, Letitia James, on the grounds that Halligan’s appointment to her position was improper – another example).
To be clear, Comey does not particularly matter, but the blatant weaponization of the Justice Department does, and Halligan’s recent performance was an object lesson in how that weaponization – and a number of Trump’s other authoritarian initiatives – has been hindered not by institutional or congressional resistance, but by the rank incompetence of the administration’s staffers and appointees.
The incompetence is everywhere. Just in the last two weeks or so, Trump and his allies have rake-stepped their way into numerous avoidable failures. Republicans “won” the government shutdown when Senate Democrats caved, and then immediately fell into a morass around the Epstein files, shortening their victory lap to less than a day. A federal court just struck down Texas’ redistricting plan after proponents and administration allies made it far too clear that the map was explicitly motivated by racial considerations. And, perhaps most amusingly, shortly after Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to make New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani the “face of the Democratic Party,” Trump openly fawned over Mamdani in a deeply weird Oval Office presser which spectators almost unanimously agree the socialist got the better of. In doing so, he defanged a hit which Republicans were already planning to slap on mailers in every swing district next year.
None of this is to say that this administration is not accomplishing terrible things; it is. But imagine, just imagine, how much worse it would be if they were competent. For me, that’s a good enough reason to give thanks.
The Activation of New Allies
As I stood on a podium in Colorado Springs in October, looking out at the 18,000 people filling America the Beautiful Park, I was struck by what I saw in the crowd. Bifocals. Gray hair. Bald spots. While there are those among our elders who have been holding the line since Vietnam, the last few decades of American politics have largely been dictated by the overwhelming conservatism of the oldest generations. But there I stood, at an anti-Trump rally on a Saturday in 2025, looking out at a sea of them.
For the most part, they had not been there when my friends and I were being tear-gassed and pepper-balled at the 2020 protests against police brutality. They had not, for the most part, been there in Ferguson or Baltimore when Black Lives Matter was born. At this year’s No Kings protests, though, baby boomers have shown out in droves.
Maybe, as some have written, the recent activation of this segment of boomers is motivated by their concerns about social security, or how Trump’s tariffs will impact their carefully planned retirements. But Robert Cohen, a professor of history at NYU, suggested that there might be more to it than that: that some of these boomers, many of whom have not protested in 40 or 50 years, are back in the streets to prevent the erosion of the progress their generation fought for in the first place: civil rights, women’s rights, the works.
It’s also true that the front lines of resistance against ICE, where the tear gas is still flying, are disproportionately populated by the members of generation Z, and that the elders who turn out to the tamer No Kings protests are not yet there with them. Resistance, however, is an additive process, and I’d rather encourage further participation by the older generations than chastise them for what they have not yet done.
Whatever has prompted the emergence of these older Americans into the streets, we should be grateful for it: boomers, it turns out, matter immensely. They own most of the housing stock, control most of the wealth, and are the most reliable voting bloc in the country. They are the generational oligarchy which has dominated and dictated American politics since Reagan.
“It’s really harder for [politicians] to dismiss them both because they vote more,” Cohen said, “but also because they’ve been around, and it’s not like some kind of a youthful exuberance.”
They might not have been with us before, it’s too soon to say if they’ll be with us for long – but many of them are with us now, and I’m thankful for that.
The Opportunity to Live How We Hope to be Remembered
Until a few years ago, there was a question which popped up in the zeitgeist from time to time: did they know? Did those who had lived through the emergence of Nazi Germany, for instance, see it coming, did they understand what was happening while it was happening, or did it only dawn on them once it was too late?
In my experience, that question is asked less and less these days, because the answer has become more and more clear: if their experience was in any way analogous to ours, they knew. They could not avoid knowing. Now, unfortunately, it is our turn – and we know, too.
In the immediate sense, that knowledge is a curse, a heavy burden to pick up every single morning. It is like being strapped to a runaway train – incapable of knowing quite when this situation will suddenly and violently dissolve into a large-scale loss of life, but certain that it will – and being forced to remain there for years.
In another sense, though, that knowledge is a gift: it gives us the chance to live through this time in the way we wish to be remembered, and it strips us of our excuses to do otherwise. We will never be able to plausibly claim that we did not know, that we did not see the escalation and the direction that things were heading. I am destroying my own chance of a future alibi by writing this paragraph, and I prefer it that way, simplified to the only two choices we actually have: to go along, or to go against.
Some years ago, a fantasy author who had seen the trenches of World War I, the blitz of World War II, still found within himself amid that destruction the spark to create worlds of his own. In creating those worlds, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote two short lines of dialogue which I think about routinely.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
All we have to decide, the wizard told the hobbit, is what to do with the time that is given us – though he might as well have been speaking to us.
What, then, shall we do with it?
Giving thanks amid the struggle is not just an intellectual exercise, it’s a vital part of maintaining the struggle, of refilling the tank for another leg of the race. The research is clear: giving thanks can make us happier. To quote a Harvard University write-up: “in positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”
Health, happiness, strong relationships, and strength through adversity. These are the things gratitude can give us – just when we need them most.
For those of us with the news hooked into our veins, those of us who feel each day bringing us closer to a day we would rather never see, gratitude matters most of all. Giving thanks is one of the best ways to keep ourselves in the fight, regardless of how long it lasts. And though I chose to use my column this week to find gratitude within the struggle, finding the time to step back from the struggle, to find gratitude and refuge in the parts of life untouched by it, is also vital.
That’s what I will be doing this Thursday: turning the news off, staying off social media, muting my news alerts, and spending time with people I love, because I know I’ll be better off for having done it.
The struggle will still be there on Friday. I hope you will, too.
